FULL TUE POD @SpenceChecketts on Buckeyes title, CFB landscape, local CBB, standup comedy + more

All right, what's good?

Drives Tuesday afternoon, sixteen minutes past the hour of two o'clock.

A cold front as hits a lake. I don't know if you notice.

Past three or four days it has been frigid and it is today as well.

Happy Tuesday to you.

Got a lot to do on the program, and as it is every single day, it's going to have you along.

For the ride.

My name is Spence Check. It's I host this radio show. That young man is Porter Larceny produces it. We are back in studio on a Tuesday afternoon after really fun remote yesterday. Shout out to my guy Vidal and the warehouse saving people a grip of money while getting you brand new mattresses, sofas, vetting faces and the like. Hopefully we'll be back out there soon, but good to be back in studio with a lot to do on the program today. Ohio State is your college football national champ.

They're two and four in Big twelve play.

In case you missed it, the Utah men's basketball game was moved to tomorrow at four o'clock. So we have a very short show here in the afternoon tomorrow to make way for some Utah bas on the program.

So a lot to do on the show.

Good guest list, get you guys through this chili Chili Tuesday afternoon here in downtown Salt Lake City, Utah. We'll start things off today with Roxy Bernstein. Now, Roxy one of our favorites from the Pac twelve network. He has a beef with Courtney Cox it's a real thing. It's a bit I can't let go. We'll do some college

To get to know them.

We've had a bunch of big time stand up comics on the program, Michael Rappaport and Studio. We keep going down the list. Obviously, Jaoe Covan has become a friend of the show. I'm a big Jim Jefferies fan. His stand up comedy is not necessarily sports talk radio friendly, so we'll see if we can get weird with Jim

All right, did notre Dame make that a fair fight? I mean not really, not really a fair fight. They as you said, they a few punches and that came in the form of literally a punch out late in the game that gave them the ball and you know, an eight point deficit. They they had a one possession game late in that in that matchup, right, so you have to give them credit for making a game of it, making it, you know, not a blowout, but early on it did look like it was going to be that way.

State really really got going.

And you know, credit to them, man, they they played really really well on a college football championship month.

No doubt about that, no doubt about that.

So let's get two eights. Our first guest will be Roxy Bernstein. But before Roxy rolls, by courtesy of our good friends, you're good friends too at Standard Restaurant Supply. You want to stop shop for all of your tailgate needs, either online or their convenient location here in downtown Salt Lake City, Utah.

It is time now for your opening tip.

Welcome to the Drive with Spence Check it's on Utah's number one sports talk. Now into the studio of ESPN seven hundred to set the scene for the show.

The opening tip of.

The Drive is brought to you by Standard Restaurant Supply, your one stop shop to build the best tailgate in town. Standard Restaurant Supply thirty five hundred Southwest Temple.

So the first twelve team expanded CFP Playoff format culminated last night in Atlanta at the Mercedes Benz Dome. It's a Ohio State take care of Notre Dame. Thirty four to twenty three. Really wasn't that close. Ohio State responded to that great initial drive from Notre Dame. Notre Dame came out of the gates and did exactly what most.

People thought they had to do.

Start quickly, but control the clock and keep Ohio State off the field. And it was like a super super long drive to start out the game that ended up in a touchdown and kind of looking around going okay, well, maybe Marcus Freeman and the fiighty and Iers can make this thing interesting.

The Ohio State response was just perfect. Boom boom boom.

Three possessions, all touchdowns, and they were not big hits. They were simply long, sustained drives that allowed the Buckeys, in my opinion, to basically put this thing away at halftime. As we talked about yesterday, Notre Dame is not built to come back once they go down by a couple of scores.

It's just tough to picture them coming back. They're just not a high powered offensive team.

Although Riley Leonard I thought last night showed some things potentially that not a lot of people had seen this year because they are a classic Notre Dame, great defensive front, you know, slow down the game and run the football with their quarterback mostly. And last night we didn't see any of Jeremiah Love, surprising a lot of people. It was really Riley Leonard and that's about it. Notre Dame did throw some punches late to make it somewhat interesting.

This was a guy who has.

As you know, little As like three weeks ago, there seemed to be a lot of conversation about whether or not he was going to keep that job, which is wild to me when you think about where he is at now on the pantheon of college football coaches, one of three current coaches to win a national championship, a better win percentage than Jim Tressel, the Sweater vest bro, and a better S and P index than Urban Meyer.

Lo had a tough time beating Utah.

It's not like he never did it, but because Bronco, you know, ten win seasons bringing BYU football back to respectability after Gary Crowton left behind what was a clean up job after led Zeppelin Party. I didn't think Bronco was ever in danger of losing that job. He ended up leaving on his own accord and I get losing to Michigan four straight times, but ultimately Ohio State, in my opinion, showed people that when they were playing top

Obviously.

They brought in a couple of very talented safety that a safety that they brought in via the transfer portal, that unbelievable freshman wide receiver, they bring in a quarterback via the transfer portal, But essentially in the trenches on defense, these are players that have played in Ohio State for a long long time, recruited out of high school and then came through and played. Some of them played more

I got Matt Brown on the show today.

Stand up comic Jim Jeffries, who will be playing Wise Guys, is going to stop by, and then Mike Samford Junior will roll by as well to talk some college football.

But on this radio show, the rem.

Brands are saved for one person, and one person only.

Of course, I'll be there for you.

The theme song of the Horrible Horrible television show back in the nineties called Friends, it means it's time for Roxy Burnston. You guys know that by now. Roxy on a Tuesday, sir, how are you?

I will be there for you, sence. I can't say that i'd be there for Courtney Cox, but I would be there for you now.

We don't need to we don't need to make it weird on a Tuesday. I know when you hear the name Courtney Cox, it just your your ears get red, you start feeling yeah, I know. Well, let's be honest. I mean, enough time has passed. That was a that was a dumb That was a dumb show. It was a bad TV show that co opted the thoughts of people that just are simpletons that didn't like a intellectual television show like Seinfelder for Honestly.

The show was pretty good. I could get past the personal issues.

Fine, well, I was trying to have your back. Never mind, awesome show.

How you been man, Thank you for the time as good.

I'm good. You know.

I was in town over the weekend. I had that overtime thriller at the Huntsman Center, and I'm on my Utah week with that game. Saturday. I have BYU Tonight, I'm in Boulder for the game against the Buffaloes. Thursday, i have the Hockey Club for ESPN against Minnesota, and then I'm back in your great state on Saturday. I'm double dipping. I have the Utah Women against BYU women down in Provo, and then the nightcap I'm double dipping on Saturday with Cincinnati against BYU.

Wow. Well, never a dull moment.

And Roxy Bernstein, the unofficial voice of Utah Sports.

I love it. Well.

I was actually I was at the Huntsman Center on Saturday night and I looked down. I looked down. I had some pretty good seats. I was about five rows behind you. But I did not have my credential. And I'm not going to be the dude that says, don't you know who I am? So I could not come down and say hello. But when I saw that you were on the call, say again, sorry.

You could have yeah, but I don't I know, yeah, I know him.

Yeah, but Roxy, I'm already unlikable enough on paper. Like you know, I'm well aware of how unlikeable I'm on paper. So I don't want to, you know, I don't want to further the narrative. So I simply texted Porter. I said, let's get our guy. And I wanted to start with Saturday night. And as you know, I was a student at Utah in the late nineties when their head coach was named Rick Majaris, and our weeks were playing around Utah basketball.

Games when I was a student there.

And I'll say, and look, Larry Chriscoviak had a couple of good teams, you know, Jim Boylan had an NCAA team. I'm not saying the building hasn't had one night like that in twenty seven years or whatever, but it really did feel like an atmosphere that reminded me of when I was watching Andre Miller and Keith van Horn and Mike Thleiak and Britton Johnson.

So let's start with the environment.

You travel all over the place for a college basketball game. To kind of feel and sound like that at the Huntsman Centers kind of war in my heart.

What did you make of that crowd?

Well, as you know, over the years, I have done a ton of games at the Huntson Center, and I think I've had a more energetic, boisterous crowd that was into it from even before the game started like we had Saturday night. That was an electric atmosphere. And I've done BYU Utah games there in Salt Lake City before and that was just a tremendous atmosphere for college basketball and it was great to see. And the Utah fans got rewarded with that overtime win, a huge w for

I agree a lot of fun and there were a good number of BYU fans, but not as many as I thought, because the rumors prior to the game was, you know, BYU fans, we're gonna grab all the secondary market tickets in the upper Bowl, and because Utah fans at times don't fill that lower Bowl, there was gonna be a lot of blue. There was some, not a ton, But let's get into the game and I'll tell you

But what stood out most to you.

About the way the game played out that allowed Utah to get that win on overtime.

Well, first off, I explained a little bit more for free flowing offense, and it didn't really come to fruition

I imagine you had a chance to catch up with Craig before the game.

Yeah, yes, oh yeah, I saw.

I was there shoot around. In fact, I was talking to him for about five minutes about twenty minutes of four tip over the hallway. So yeah, I have had a great relationship with Craig going back to his days in Utah State.

So he's like the best dude as you know, and I'm pulling hard for him his son bountiful lum Rock stand. I know you don't have time, but when you have time later you can look up the nineteen ninety seven Bountiful Braize basketball team, the one state. People around here believe it's the best high school team in the history. I don't say that, even though I mean I may have been on the team, but I don't say that.

It's not me.

And so his son played for the same high school coach I did, so I used to run into him at some of those games, and I pull for him, and I felt so happy for him with this win, and he's had good wins in the past out of win over Oregon, and so we're hoping ultimately this is not only a moment in time, but can you shed a little light on some of the portions of your conversations with him and his thoughts on this group and what they could potentially do this year.

First off, as you know when you talk to his fence, he's always upbeat, he's always positive, and the way he looks at things get so much energy and it's infectious, and I think his team feels that every time that they're on the practice floor, they're on this floor for shooter round, get ready for games in locker room, he gets them going and.

They feed off it.

And you're right they don't.

Have the talent at BYU does, but Craig finds a way to get the most out of his talent, utilize the pieces. And the other thing about Craig is he recruits that style that he wants to play with the ball movement. Yes, Gate Madisen is a great shooter from the outside is going through a little bit of a funk right now, but he's also a willing passer. Last and lovering at center is a center that's averaging two

It's not.

The SEC has shown that they are the best basketball league so far here, but I think the Big Twelve is right behind it. To be honest with you, With the way this league is balanced, you look at teams like Iowa State, Kansas, Baylor, after a rough opening to the season, has come on. There's a lot of really good basketball. Arizona's figured things out and it makes it

So I saw Craig on the sidelines of the Utah BYU football game and he was there to kind of do the basketball coach thing. It's like, hey, well you're all here, come see us play. And he told me about Ezra at the game and he said, you know, they were really excited about him East Carolina transfer, and he's.

Had some personal stuff. Craig alluded to it after the game.

He went home after the death of his grand and I got to say, Roxy, you're old enough to remember because I made this reference. And I think most young listeners are probably looking at me with eight heads. There's like a little Adrian Danley to this kid's game because he's not six ' eight, Roxy, He's not okay, he's listed at six to eight.

He's like six ' five sixty six.

But his the myriad of pump fix, the ability to finish with both hands. He's a better athlete than ad was because the knock on your head, but finishes with the right hand, finishes with the left hand. And Kevin threw everybody at him. He threw for foose tray or he at him. He threw ke Bacade at him. And it didn't matter who was guarding Ezra Sar. He just got whatever he wanted. And I didn't know he had that in him. And I know he had a nice

It seemed like he was a different player in the second half Saturday night, maybe because the emphasis to get him the basketball, but he was unstoppable. And he went to town. B what you knew what he was going to do, and they couldn't stop him. And every shot was either right at the rim or within five c And it's not like he yet it on the perimeter and nailing threes or even hitting the mid rage jumper.

So before we get over to BYU, because I do have some questions about Kevin's team. I was really happy for Hunter Air and who is a BYU transfer?

And it's fun.

You know you mentioned Gabe and his shooting struggles. I will say this, I thought BYU did a remarkable job on Gabe. You know, they started with Mowatt mag on him. Richie Saunders chased him around for a while, Dawson Baker chased him around for a while, but every single screen he came off of BYU was ready. They blitzed him this and two. So he just didn't have a lot of space. And he's the type of shooter like Steve Kerr.

Yeah, no question, and the clutch plays you alluded to, and with Mattson, he needs to be a volume shooter on this team, and he is their best shooter. Okay, maybe not percentage wise, but he's got to be the guy that they look to to take the big shot. And that's what Craig's getting at with him being a volume shooter and those tough, challenging shots, those fadeaway threes end of a shot clock, when he's got a fire

Indeed, indeed, before I get to bring him young, What are you willing to say about Utah's Big Twelve chances this year? They're not winning the conference, but they've won three straight games. Could Craig somehow, some way get this team in the NCAA Tournament.

I wouldn't rule it out because of what you alluded to. They've won three straight games and if you can come up with some clutch wins along the way, they're eleven and six overall to five hundred league. They got a tough game with Houston coming up, which on the road, and I think I think Houston's really good Spence. I had them early, and I'm so impressed with the way that they play. They're so tough mentally and physically. They just pound you and they beat you up, and to me,

I agree with that, And you know, we'll see how Utah stacks up. But I'm not going to take a ton away from that game because Houston might win by thirty and you know, ultimately, I don't think it would change a whole lot because there's a gap between those two teams all right.

Over to BYU.

And here's the thing, Like, you know, Kevin Young gets that job to a lot of celebration, a lot of a lot of BYU fans, you know, really really excited about the potential.

And Kevin comes from the NBA.

His bench is littered with assistant coaches that have NBA experience. They bring in an NBA strength and conditioning staff and nutritionness from the Phoenix Suns, and suddenly the collective starts paying a lot of money to get talent. I reference Diego Demon, who reportedly is a seven figure kid ken and catching is a lot of people think he's a first round prospect. Is making good money aged the bands, is on his way to play for Kevin next year.

And he hasn't this before.

This is his first go round and they're obviously close, but the fact of the matter is they're own to five and quad one opportunities, they're own four in games decided by five points or less, and they have not won a road game. They have to win tonight. What stands out most to you is you watch this early project that Kevin is tasked with leading.

Well, it is a work in progress and it's different the way Mark Pope went about it. And certainly that offense was fun to watch as all the threes they shot last year. This is the team of still making threes, but they go about it a different way. And you know, Demon, he hasn't been the same since he hurt his knee in early December and that game against Providence, and I think they're hoping at some point it clicks back in for him. But you could see the talent in terms

They think Richie.

Saunders might be an NBA player. That the things that he does, how quickly he gets his shot off, the toughness that he plays with, that the energy he provides. Look, I'm not saying he's going to be maybe a regular rotation top guy in the NBA, but there is a lot of people that feel, including some coaches around the Big twelve, that Richie Saunders is an empty player.

Well Mark badly wanted him at Kentucky.

You know, he had a good offer to take off to play for his former head coach.

And he's a good player.

I mean, he means a lot to them, and I think they'll figure it out because that talent is undeniable and I just don't know if I can coach. I'm not trying to be critical here, but this is his first time. When you have the talent, we're going to talk about the coaching. Let's take advantage of the final few minutes to get a little hockey in roxy as.

We are now.

We are now hockey Town, USA. Of course, with the Utah Hockey Club here and then to Detroit. Well they might have a claim to it. We don't because we're still very early in our experiences. But you know, I've been to four or five games. It's so fun. I love watching that sport live and the NHL Live is something else to watch. These guys do what they do on skates forwards and backwards, like go out and try and skate in the straight line.

See how that goes for you.

But they've been up, they have been down, they have been up, they have been down. They've won a couple of straight games. And you're gonna call a game of theirs this week. What stands out as you do your prep, as you learn about the Utah Hockey Club, what stands out most of you.

Well, right now, it's the play of the top line and basically the connection that Cooley Keller have. Keller last night coming back after getting popped in the eye and eat it. Stitches had the big game, and well if Utah's had it home for some reason, they played well on the road. Marino coming back I think is a boost for them on the back end. They need Surgachev back going again, and Connor Ingram being back certainly helps. But the top line right now, the way that they

Do you think as we sit here today they have fallen a little bit, but there's still somewhat in the mix for the wild card. They've got forty seven points, Calgary has fifty one, Colorado has fifty seven. They've fallen behind both Vancouver and Saint Louis. And look, you know, Bill Armstrong, I think I mentioned this to you. It was I got such a kick out of this. The introductory Utah Hockey Club kind of rally press conference included mostly players. At the beginning, Spicy Tuna stole the show.

Do you think they have that in them this year?

I wouldn't rule it out. He's are they gonna They're gonna happen on some home games because, as you know, it's been tough sledding for them. Well, for whatever reason, if Delta center this year, that has to get corrected if they're going to be a playoff team. But the interesting thing here down the stretch, and you alluded to the days in Arizona, is they haven't been through this as far as down the stretch being in a playoff race. If they are there, how are they going to handle this?

All right, Roxy, before I say you loose, we now have a college football national champ in is Ohio State, and we now have the first iteration of the twelve team expanded CFP behind us, so we can diagnose ultimately how we digested it and the change is the need to be made. I just kind of wonder, as a guy that's covered this thing forever, what do you make of this new college football playoff and how we crown a national champ.

I like the fact that they value the conference championship. To me, that was important, Spence, that was one of the famous for me that I wanted to see if they were going forward with the twelve team playoffs, you win the Big twelve, you win the ACC in the SEC, you should be rewarded with a first round by And I also like the fact they rewarded the group of five with Boise State. Now do I think Boise State was one of the elite teams, know? But I think they earned it and so you put them, you give

Yeah, I'm with you there, all right, My friend, always appreciate the time.

Great to catch up, save travels as you are now the voice of Utah Sports, and we'll get.

You on soon, okay, anytime. Man, the great.

Roxy Bernstein, our old buddy from the PAC twelve network. It's funny how many of these broadcasters we met as a PAC twelve institution here at vers of Utah. But he now does a grip of stuff for ESPN ESPN Radio. He is a Heisman voter and one of my favorite people that I've met in this business. He is on social media at roxy Bernstein is where you find him doing some EYU basketball tonight against Colorado, doing some Utah Hockey club against the Wild and on Saturday as the

This is breaking news. Do you want me to do that? Yeah, go ahead. You can't put me on the spot. Now it's live radio.

We're on the spot for four hours, so let's fire that up and let's do a little Okay, go ahead.

And now breaking beaves. That really made a big difference. Thanks. Real salt Lake has added.

Brazil Brazilian goalkeeper Raphael Cabral. So that rumor was floated out by our guy Tom Bogert. Raphael Cabral Porter, you should know that he's really good with the ball at his feet.

Ah yep as a goalkeep yep.

Thirty four year old Brazilian keeper so Zach McMath is having surgery. Gavin Beaver's has been loaned to a Danish club RSL.

Looks like that they're starting keeper Rafael Cabral.

College football season came into to an end last night in Atlanta, Ohio State is your national champ Our next guest was on the ground. I believe I saw him send out a picture on social media. He's been one of our favorites to college football all year long. The writer and creator of one of my favorite college football newsletters called Extra Points.

My buddy Matt Brown on a Tuesday. Matt, Happy Tuesday.

Man.

You were on the ground in Atlanta last time? Yeah, I was.

I just got back to Chicago about twenty minutes ago.

It was a little bit of a zoo.

Getting out of town, but.

I was there and it was a truly excellent experience.

I think.

Tell me about that environment, what was the percentage of Ohio State fans versus Notred Notre Dame fans And what was it like to kind of be on the ground there.

Yeah, I think it was probably her around sixty percent Ohio State, maybe fifty five percent Ohio State. Normally, I think in these kind of circumstances, the Ohio State fans will generally take over a building, but Notre Dame is probably right up there in terms of as large and as national of a fan base and one that can afford to show the ridiculous amount of money for a ticket.

You would expect.

But I really found this to be a pretty high energy, high energy game, high energy crowd. Things kind of began to low a little bit in the middle of the third quarter when it looked like Ohio State had already won the game, but Notre Dame came back pretty quickly, and it was it was loud, it was it was, it was intense, and the level of relief I would say from Ohio State's coaches, their players, their staffers was very significant once you get on the ground here, because

It's a I think it's it's a complicated ending for this team.

And we'll get there in a moment.

I have not seen a final number as far as the TV ratings go, but as you reference, if it's three grand just to get in the building, I would imagine that the powers that be in college football, and I would imagine when we see the number, the powers that be in television are probably going to celebrate this twelve team format. Right it feels like it's probably checking all the boxes for the people that make the decisions about this stuff.

Oh I think, I think, unquestionably for anybody on the financial or business side of college athletics or this industry. The first year of this call team playoffs was a massive, massive success.

UH.

You were able to prove that you could host a campus site game on short notice and some notoriously difficult to UH to reach UH and and handle the environments right. Like, I don't know if any of you guys listening have ever been to State College Pennsylvania where Penn State is, but there's basically two hotels that it's in the middle of nowhere. It's a giant camping trip. They sent one hundred thousand people uh on on on the ten days

Bend, you know, on recruiting visits.

People typically have to stay in Chicago or Michigan. They hosted a playoff game, you had, you had strong attendance, strong ratings UH and and improved ratings and and buy into the end of the regular season. So there's certainly things I think to be tweaked or improved, and those are things that the administrators are going to be talking

All right?

Moving over to the wild ride that it's been for Ryan Day, And look, yeah, you know, I don't know that I have an accurate frame of reference for how intensely passionate, maybe at times crazy Ohio State fans are. And I get losing to Michigan four times in a row is a really bad look. And I don't know how they lost to Michigan this year with how good they are, how deep, And I get it, I really do. But Ryan Day is a coach that has a better winning percentage than Jim Tressel. He has a better SMP

The heat was meaningful. It was not a situation where I think he was in danger of Ohio State actively terminating the contract. And a large part of that is just because his buyout would be would be absolutely prohibitive. But the stresses on him and his family there were I saw some reports leaving the game that there was

You had the.

One versus two matchup earlier in the year in Eugene, and then you had Oregon the year before as your premier not out of conference game when they really weren't that good, and you had C. J. Stroud and you lose. You had the very winnable playoff game against Georgia when they won the national championship by roughly eight hundred points, and things kind of fell apart in the fourth quarter and you missed the shift the yard field goal, and

Do you think there's any chance?

And maybe this getting older because I'm thinking what it would be like to win. He's finished in the top ten every year he's been the Ohio State head coach. As you reference, he's seventy and ten. That's third all time winning percentage in college football, one of three coaches to win a national championships as I reference, Do you think there's any part of him that's like, I'm over this and maybe he decides that he would like to go do what he does at a top the very

I mean, it's entirely possible if that conversation is going to happen. I'm not just going to you know, it'll be happening after the championship parade and after something else. I think the next month in Columbus is.

Going to be fascinating.

Just I was to see how fans and I include myself in this honestly, how they reconcile their previous sentiments with this guy and compartmentalize the frustration over the last few years With the final result. I understand that many people listening to this and think, how on earth could you go seventy and ten and be unhappy like that sounds insane. People Utah and dou Fans walk across broken glass to have some kind of a run of success

And that isn't me just saying that as a.

Guy that was born in Columbus, Like look up sports Reference man like that.

That's that they have the highest.

Floor of anybody in the in the sport. So you come in and you're just a pretty good coach, You're gonna win nine games there. Now you have to really really screw up to bottom out. And I think that that juxtaposed to the results on the field. Is why you saw this awesome frustration I need. If a day decided in two weeks, I did what I said I was gonna do. I'm gonna go coach with the Colts. I'm

Defense Captain Morona, I wouldn't go seventy and ten in college football, Matt, if we're being honest, I mean you said b yu fans, you know, walking off, and you're one of the few media members I could actually make that reference to. But seventy and ten.

I think would struggle to recruit in this environment. I remember, if it's been a minute, but I remember he rubbed a couple of people the wrong way. Yea very very passionate Hi, but not everybody was always thrilled with his approach. You have to be a little bit more of a team player in this era.

But we're talking about the chief captain of the need fights. He'd ad just you know that sure.

Well, yeah, definitely definitely team schematic mind.

Okay, okay, moving on before we start getting emails. I just knew you were the one that I could ask that question too, for obvious reasons. All Right, we had a lot of good college football guests on yesterday. We also had the game on our station at five thirty, and I asked them all the same question, Matt, because I just felt like, in my opinion on paper, that was a mismatch last night, and so I said, can Notre Dame make this a fair fight?

Do you think they did?

Oh?

Unquestionably. I mean the first ten minutes of the game. I think laid out exactly the script that Notre Dame needed, which was run a lot of qv power and hold the ball for eight minutes and just paper cut Ohio State to death and limit the number of possessions. They are times that Ohio State could score buck guys scored touchdown their first four Because Notre Dame was so shit at the beginning of the game, the margin never really

There was a there was a pathway for them to win.

It would have looked a lot like the Michigan game where you just dragged the drag Ohives stayed into the mud to make the fight in a phone booth. They just weren't able to do it for four quarters. They're really only able to do it for about fourteen minutes.

So equal time here for coaches.

Because I've been wildly impressed with Marcus Freeman.

Didn't start out well with that home loss.

To Marshall, and obviously Week two wasn't Northern Illinois this year, But what would it be like at the age of thirty five, your first head coaching job is you're the head coach of Notre Dame.

You know, like that's that's a wild thing.

And as I've listened to him more throughout this run and studying him more throughout the Notre Dames, you know, march to the National Championship game, I've been wildly impressed with his communication, wildly impressed with the way his players respond to him. He kind of just feels like this rising star in the ranks to college football. So what stands out most to you about this kind of wonderkins rise we've seen from from Notre Dame's head coach Marcus Freeman.

Sure, and maybe this market doesn't know about this or I don't know if it was, you know, mentioned on the broadcast four hundred times, but Marcus Freeman, of course played at Ohio State. He's from Ohio, and as Ohio State fans went to the message boards over the last two years contemplating ejecting Ryan Day in the space, one of the two people that everybody said we should go bring we should go bring home would be Marcus Freeman.

Is not somebody that's going to be on the.

Mister Congeniality Award list for anybody that works in the college sports industry. That's not what Freeman is. And he's not the stereo type of what a domer has typically been. I don't know if he's gonna end up staying there for thirty years. Nobody really does in this industry other than winningham. But if I was an Notre Dame fan, which I'm not, but if I was, I would be very heartened by this year. And I feel very good about where your coaching staff is today and moving forward.

Heard a lot of college football media members complain about the length of time, the fact that it's January twentieth in this Monday night game. I get it, but you can't go ahead to head against the NFL. You're a smart guy. What do you think the solution is here?

I don't really know if there is one. I understand the frustration too. I think in a perfect world, maybe this is a game that's played in the Central time zone and you go a little bit earlier and try to alleviate some of those things you already kind of got beat up on some of these early early playoff games by going against the NFL. The only thing I could possibly think of is potentially starting the season.

A week earlier.

But then you're looking at a lot of lost revenue from having maybe multiple games before class actually starts. It's one of the issues that the college baseball schedule has with the postseason goes well past graduation for many teams. The Final Four.

Has the same issue too.

The championship game is usually on a Monday, it's usually in the.

Eastern time zone.

It usually goes way past everyone else's bedtime. It thinks when I'm president, will the day after the championship game will be a day off.

Just like the super Bowl.

But that's we're not there yet.

I love it.

What do you make of I think Joel Klatt's the one that's been pushing this narrative of college football, making the Rose Bowl their answer to the Super Bowl.

I understand it from the perspective of tradition. And you know, look, even if you're a completely cynical person, when the sunsets over the mountains around the third quarter, it does look beautiful. The most cynical reporters. I know, I haven't covered a game there yet, but you know, tell me, like, no, when you touch the grass, you recognize that it's perfect.

Is that the Rose Bush.

Is hard to get to, and when you host gigantic events in Los Angeles, because traffic is so bad and everything is so sprawled out, it's difficult to get hotels, it's difficult to do media availability.

You just you're just stuck there.

And there's there's really three cities where you can have a great stadium experience, and fans and everybody involved in the event can can.

Be relatively close by and you can.

Have all the programming within walking distance. I think that's Atlanta, It's New Orleans, and it's Indianapolis. I know everybody makes fun of Indianapolis that you've covered a major event there. You get it. You're not there to go, move or to go. You know, look check out the art scene. You're you're there for for this this major football game.

And there it is. There, it is, Yes, the final the final point there.

Hey, you know the narrative matters, you know, is that Ohio State Body Championship eight a grip of money for a group you know, twenty to twenty five mil.

I don't know what the number is.

But you know what's interesting, The majority of that revenue went to like returning players. You know, in a way, Ryan Day built this thing over a long game type play, and I think the narrative is like they just went and bought a bunch of dudes in the transfer port. They brought in some And we've been debating here because Utah football is bringing in forty one new players. It's a fifty three percent roster turnover, and you get it because they really struggled a year ago.

But coach witz Mo has.

Always been recruit, develop, retain, win, and the best Utah teams have always been teams that have had third four fifth year guys, so four eight you know, Rose Bowl, Pac twelve champs as well. And is that a model for success in college football? So how would you articulate the way Ryan Day and the Ohio State administration went about building this roster and allocating their funds.

Yeah, this is this is something I'm going to be writing about some more this week because I've seen that narrative too, and I do think it's missing the.

Point a little bit.

So, yes, the total payroll for Ohio States football roster was about twenty million dollars down on the field. Talk to the athletic director, roster Orke. He confirmed that Ryan Day alluded to it in the final press conference. Both people also said, and I'm inclined to believe this that that wasn't the highest payroll in college football this year. And it's hard to get hard and fast data about this, depending on who you talk to. Oregon, Texas, Miami, we're

So one thing I think i'd.

Point to you here is that every single starter in that championship game on Ohio State's offensive and defensive lines was a high school commit to Ohio State. Set the Blackmow, the center, you know, came from Alabama. You might have remembered that he had a truly horrific game in the College Football Playoff, had a couple of fumbles, That's why he was off.

He was injured.

I did not play through the through the playoff run, but most of those guys were seniors or or red yerd juniors, or people that turned down going to the NFL for the third or fourth round, uh, delaying their their their second contract to come back and and win

Well, that was actual, honest.

To goodness, legitimate corporate marketing deals, and Ohio State will probably you know then in Texas will probably always have the most legitimate corporate marketing deals, maybe Michigan in a in some years. But I think it's going to be easier to build a team where the majority of your players are people that signed with you as high schoolers or if they were transfers, stay with your program for multiple years, and then you go when you try to fill three or four holes in your roster each year.

So the Big Ten now has back to back national champs. They have Oregon with Uncle Phil's money, they have Ohio State and Michigan. They have LA Chicago, New York. If you can't Rutgers, I suppose, and there are a lot of Penn State fans in Philly. They have some of the biggest markets in the country, They have some of the best teams in the country. Is it time to say the Big Ten is not just a pre emitive conference in college football?

But it might not be close?

Don't I don't know if I'm willing to say that it's it's overwhelmingly the best conference in college football. I think I think pound for pound, is probably still the SEC. But that gap is as small as it's ever been, and there's a reason to believe that that friend could change. And it's interesting because this is also true when you look at the the history of college football. The main entities that were opposed to giving athletic scholarships were Big

Make work jobs.

And schools in the South, which were often in smaller areas and less wealthy states and had less wealthy fan bases, wanted to give scholarships so they could be an equal footing because they knew that Michigan and Ohio State in Minnesota and Wisconsin kind of outbid death and then you went to the athletic scholarship model. There was some more parody. He had the under the table Bagman era where I

The court system.

Is going to give another big advantage to schools in not just larger markets, but that have richer fans and

And that's going to be I.

Think an uncomfortable cultural reevaluation compared to how people in the South look at their football programs over the last fifteen years.

Final thing mad will set you loose. And you know, when I saw that you're on the rundown, I wanted to ask you about this because you'll be good with it. The US Department of Education, we've been waiting for a little Title nine guidance.

We got it.

So future revenue distributions from a school to an athlete or his or her NL rights are now what's called financial assistance, which must be made proportionally available to male and female athletes. I was not aware of this, but my news alerts tell me we have a new president that has been installed, so potentially this could change things.

And where do you ultimately do you think we land.

It's a great question, And what I can tell you, guys is I've been tracking this for over a year and talking to a lot of experienced litigators and attorneys that work in the Title nine space, and what I heard pretty consistently over the last nine ten months was that based on the letter of the law and based on court precedent and administrative precedent, and not just from like the Biden and Obama administrations, but you're going further back, you're based on on on the law.

The Doees guidance here makes a lot of sense.

There was, there was. That's part of the reason why you saw a lot of universities try to really hedge their bets with how with with with revenue sharing a needle with some of their work with NIL because they're very worried about that potential liability. So that's true on one component. So I'm not I'm not shocked that the advice came at all. I am shocked that it came, you know, three days before the Biden administration's out the door. The other kind of challenging thing though about Title nine

Right.

We have we have a case still pending right now with Oregon, and we're one of the components. Are are women athletes suing over uh, disproportionate publicity and and side benefits and and administrative support around nil to say nothing of revenue sharing.

And we're not close to.

That case being finished. So what a lot of a lot of universities in this market, in my market, across the country have decided to do is say, look, we're all speeding. They can't arrest all of us, and and we don't see enough state troopers out here. So I'm not going to adjust my speed. I'm just going to hope that I'm not the red Lambeau that that you know, that draws the FED detentions. First, like if the Feds

It's not an worse very often.

So this is a major question, is what this administration decides to do with this particular component of Title nine. And honest to God, I think that's that's not an easy political question to answer, right because you've had a lot of conservative activists points is Title nine as part of the justification for fighting back really hard against trans

Or women's volleyball.

You're gonna have some conservative activists you don't think we should have Title nine at all. And I think there may be a real bipartisan conversation about.

Revisiting that law because it wasn't written.

For sports, and it wasn't really written for a world where where collegiate athletics becomes more explicitly professionalized. And that's a conversation worth having. So all of this is to say, I'm I actually am really frustrated that the Biden administration isided to do this because I think that just injects

Where can people go get all your work? Matt?

You can find my stuff at extra Points MB dot com.

Or Matt Brown EP on Twitter and Blue Sky.

Thank you, my friend. Have a great week and we'll chat too.

Oh it's always my pleasure.

Thanks for having me, I the great Matt Brown.

I'm telling you it's one of the best college football newsletters around. A lot of it is the business of college football things off the field.

It's called Extra Points.

Find it on extra points mb dot com or his Twitter pages at Matt brown EP. All right, got to tell you about my friends at Prize Picks before we catch a break. Prize Picks is the best place to get real money sports action with over ten million members. Now we've got conference championship weeks coming up and they're basically giving you a free square. It's Jaden Daniels. He only needs one passing yard and you win a square. And all you need to do is pick two or

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Stand up comedian and Jim Jefferies will join the show today.

I've watched a number of Jim's specials.

What I'll say is, I'm not sure that it's the type of content that needs to be on sports talk radio. So have you order have you had a conversation with Jim Jefferies about the format that he is about to join.

He doesn't know the deal, he doesn't know he's, you know, just promoing the stand up tour, not actually performing it. I'm always actually surprised, and I know I shouldn't be, because it's just they're just people. They're professionals like us. I'm always surprised at the filter some of those guys are able to have when they're like professionally able to speak the way that they do on stage.

When you booked Rapaport and Studio, like exactly, if you've ever watched any of Rapaport's content, like he doesn't go more than one sentence without dropping the cursiest of curses and Jim Jefferies is kind of the same.

He's an Australian guy. Have you ever seen in any of his specials. Yeah, they're like all on Netflix.

He's got like six or seven of them up there, so I've seen I want to say, two or three, but definitely not like his whole.

What do you call it discography.

Yeah, his last special, This is Me Now, is on Netflix. I still I believe it's still on Netflix. His single day so I'm a single dad, as you know, both the son and now dog his single dad takes.

Oh man, they're hilarious.

They're not for on air consumption, at least on this format, but he'll be playing wise guys.

Yeah, he's going to be at the Eckles. Oh at the Eckles. The Eckles.

So as part of the interview getting getting some free Jim Jeffers ticket, we do have a giveaway, so some of our listeners will get free Jim Jefferson.

Now that giveaways, that giveaway is going right in my back pocket. I'll ask about you two.

I'm not allowed to do that, but I would love to see Jim Jeffers live. So he's gonna hop on today then Mike Samford Junior rolls by for some more college football in the program. Some news that has kind of dropped since we have been on air and been very busy. Sounds like Josh McDaniels is being hired as the New England Patriots offensive coordinator for the third time, to work with Mike Rabel.

Yeah.

From what I understand, that was the second that Mike Rabel was hired. It was pretty much a sure thing that that would happen. And that's from guys that have been in locker rooms with those two and and know the relationship that Vrabel and McDaniels have, So yeah, I think that was that was one that it's surprising when you see it just because third time, same job, you're

The third time.

McDaniel's back in New England to call plays be offensive coordinator Kevin O'Connell. The Vikings agree to a multi year extension today as well. So obviously there's still NFL games to be played, but this is the time of year where a lot of the good teams are obviously still playing, so certain organizations are waiting for them to be done in order to find their next head coach. Ben Johnson has been hired officially this was yesterday as the head coach of the Chicago Bears.

He will coach Caleb Williams.

What so, here's my only question about Ben Johnson. Have you ever heard him interviewed and have you been like blown away by his personality? He seems to be kind of like robotic, right, And I'm not sure that that's bad for a play caller, but I don't know if that's great for your head coach.

Yeah.

No, I share that sentiment because it is. It's one where you know, we can think of Andy Ludwig, a guy who I think is a really good play caller, a really good offensive formulator. But I would never see Andy Ludwig as a head football coach just because of his demeanor, the way he approaches the game. It's more about diagnosing. He's almost like a doctor. It feels like, right, he's figuring stuff out and trying to apply a fix

All right, let me get let me get your take on this. So the final CFP rankings were released. Obviously, now the season is behind us BYU came in at seventeen Arizona State Land where did Arizona State Land?

Oregon won?

So BYU so Arizona State came in at twelve, BYU at seventeen, Iowa State eighteen, Colorado at twenty three. That rounds out your Big twelve teams as far as ranked in the final CFP rankings. When it came to the AP pole, Arizona State comes in at seven, BYU at thirteen. I know BYU fans are very sad today that SMU is twelve.

It will be okay.

BYU at thirteen, I was stayed at fifteen. Looks like that's it. Oh No, Colorado held on at number twenty five. So porter If BYU is thirteen in the final AP and they're seventeen in the final CFP, where's their preseasons next year? I feel like it's top twenty. I feel like it's like between fifteen and twenty.

I think so.

I think they'll be a top twenty five team when it comes to preseason rankings. But as you know, Spence, those rankings don't always reflect necessarily everything that you see at the end of the year. They're going to be taken into account of a bunch of recruiting rankings, a bunch of you know, prognostications of what this team will look like next year, I think by You will be a top twenty five team. I don't know that they'll be a top fifteen team in the preseason rankings.

I think they'll be, you know, twenty two or so.

But again, those are our things that why do we even do the preseason ones just to talk about in the radio, because we have.

Four hours of sports doc rated to do porter Unfortunately, we can't just fill time talking about our favorite Jim Jeffrey stand up special.

That's all it's for.

It's for content for people like us to talk about, people like Mark Schlaba to ride about, because we're trying to rate interest in Do you want to talk about the jazz today?

Yeah, we'll get there. We'll get there.

Mark Schlabaugh wrote his Way too Early preseason top twenty five coming up for the Fall. BYU comes in at nine for sleay Ba's Way too Early Top twenty five. He has Ohio State as and they're the Vegas favorite to win it again. Texas at two, so a house date one, Texas to Penn State three, Notre Dame four, Georgia five, Oregon six, Clemson seven, LSU eight, b y

Kansas State.

As we kind of scroll down, my guess is that's all for the Big twelve. And it is so no Colorado in the top twenty five. And obviously Utah has a lot of questions to answer. You know, I heard Joe Klatt talking about this on his pod this morning. He was talking about this from a Michigan standpoint, and he made a point that I thought was somewhat interesting. I don't know how much meat is on this bone, but I just thought about it through the prism of Utah and BYU, and I want to get your thoughts.

Porter.

He said, anytime your rival accomplishes something So like, if you're Sean Moore, if you're Michigan, if you're their ad and administration, you're looking at what Ohio State just did. You're looking at their formula, you're looking at their payroll, and because they are your rival, you're saying to yourselves, how can we get back on their level? Even though

I think you kind of have to.

Maybe not, you know, in in all circumstances, all situations, is that your your guiding beacon.

But you have to.

And part of the reason is not just because their rival spence and you're wanting to best your rival. Part of that reason is because these two rivals are so interconnected. They are in the same market for all intents and purposes. They are in the same you know state. They are fighting for some of the same corporate money, which corporate money in college sports is now money for your roster

This year, Utah Jazz went down to the Big Easy and dropped a couple of games with the Pelicans.

They were ahead by twenty five points last night. TJ.

McCollum had forty five six points at overtime the Pelicans. That's the largest comeback in franchise history. They came back to beat the Jazz. If you are looking to watch one of the best teams in the NBA that's actually trying to win, the Jazz are back in action tomorrow at Oka See.

So not out for the Jazz tonight.

Busy night in the NBA, of course, as we now have moved on from college football officially, so no Jazz basketball tonight, But there's a sneaky big game for one of our n state college basketball teams tonight BYU is at Colorado. Colorado is not good this year. I think they are the worst team in the conference record wise. I'm not sure they've won a Big Twelve game as I look up the standings in real time.

In fact, they have not.

They're zero to six and the Big Twelve they're nine and eight overall. B YU right now is two and four in conference. They've got to win tonight. They have not won one on the road, they have not won a quad one game, and as of now, they're not close to being projected as an NCAA tournament team. That two and four record in conference ties then with Cincinnati and Oklahoma State, Arizona State case Day one and five Colorado, oh and six. So BYU with kind of a sneaky

It was originally scheduled.

For tonight and now will be tomorrow afternoon at four o'clock Mountain Time against Houston, who just is impossible. This will be a cage fight. This will be a physical matchup. Houston has big, physical NBA you know, prospects, future pros, and ultimately it'll be interesting to see how Utah stacks up. But if they keep with it, they stay within twenty against Houston tomorrow, I think that'll be a win. The women are in action tomorrow against Kansas here in Salt Lake.

Jim, Happy Tuesday. How are you, sir?

Thanks for having me mad, I'm doing great.

I got to ask you right out of the gates. Are you a sports fan of any kind?

I'm a big sports guy. Yeah. I'm mostly followed baseball, so I'm lucky enough to support the Dodges, which we seem to get all the trades at the moment, and I follow the Clippers a bit because my son's mad into basketball. But I grew up watching rugby and rugby league in Australia.

Do you know who Joe ingles Well, Cop I'll watch anything.

Really, Okay, do you know who Joe Ingles is?

Yes, Joe Ingles is. Joe Ingles played for Utah Juys for a long time and now he plays Oh he plays to somewhere else now. But he got Australia the bronze medal. Man. I know Joe Ingles, of course I did.

Okay, yeah, because we had Joe Ingles and Dante ExHAM here and when they were here playing for the Jazz I was working over for the Jazz radio station and Joe was like the funniest dude.

I mean, he was a basketball player, but he was just hilarious.

What is it about the Australian humor that seems to tickle American's funny bone the way it does.

I think a lot of it's got to do with phrasing. And we seem to be laid back, you know. It seemed to be cool guys, you know, but I don't know if we are. I think we're not as laid back as people say we are, you know. I think people thought we were cool for a while and then we got screwed over by Ray Gun in the Olympics, and it's really taking us back a few sticks.

Hey, I'll the speak for myself. You know, I thought it was hilarious. I thought Raygun ruled. I thought it was awesome.

There's a comedy club in Melbourne that's trying to do ray Gun the music, and she has sent legal papers trying to get it stopped, so she doesn't seem very chill.

Old Reygun so high and dry out on Netflix right now, Jim, is that your seventh special that you released?

It's my night ninth, but my seventh in America.

Okay, gotcha.

And I'm recording another one in Chicago in about four weeks time. That will be released in about four months on Netflix. So I got one more in me.

I think you've got more than one more in you. You're forty seven years old. You've got a lot.

Left in it.

I never try to look too much further ahead, you see, I see. I always think that the last one I'm going to do is the last one I'm going to do, and then no one's going to want to see me again or whatever. So I try to put everything into the next special, and then you think you're never going to record run again, and then about a year later

Oh wow.

Okay, Well, if you need somewhere to go, let me know. I know all the good spots around here. So seven specials here in the US. And of course that's how I became familiar with your work. I just actually know what before we get to what I was about to ask you, what you just said struck me because you know, we're sports talk radio show, but I like to branch out.

I think that's a lot easier for Larry David than it need for you know, like it all so for him to go. I might not have another season. I could in me, what is the eighty years old? He might not, you know, to look at it like it might be the last one. But I think that is a common approach. I think it would be terrible to brag and just to go I've got ten more specials

Is it possible?

Because I became familiar with you with Alcoholocaust back in twenty ten.

That's one that's the best special. That's what Alcoholocaust is the one I'm most proud of. And no one saw it. It was it was shown on a showtime for like three or four times, and you have to see it online and it's not even on YouTube on my channel. But that's my best special with Alcoholocaust.

Yeah, well you just answer my question.

Because I was wondering if it was possible for you to rank who which you think your best one is, And that's the one that I believe, Jim was you at your peak. But it feels like and I've seen well, I'll just say I've seen all seven of the ones you released in America. That's why I thought, you know, in the United States, That's why I thought this was going to be you know, your your eighth coming up.

It feels to me that you've and one of the things.

I love about the craft, and I'm a huge stand up comedy fan. We always have stand up comics on the show when they're here playing in our market, because I think you people fascinate me. The courage that you have to do what you do and the fact that thousands of people show up to watch you with a microphone blows my mind. So from my vantage point, you've grown and evolved into a different place today. I don't know how much of that is just your your daily

Ten, if I was the same like I was an alcoholicaust, I wouldn't be here now. Every day. Yeah. So you know, like you talk about evolving, a lot of it's just surviving. You know. Like if I think my second best special is probably Bare because of the gun control routine, and then my third favorite is Intolerant, and that's one that maybe rated the lowest out of all of them. But I look back on that special and I think that one's a banger. Yeah, of course you have to evolve.

Where do you get the courage to do what you do. Where did you find that? Was that something you were born with? Was that something you developed?

You know?

Louis came often drops the line like, have the courage to suck at something until you're grade at it?

Did you always have it? Jam or is it something you developed?

No?

I didn't always have it. I did a few open mic spots when I was seventeen that went so badly that I didn't do it again ntil I was twenty. You know, I thought I couldn't do it again, and I thought about it every day until I turned twenty to do it again. And then for the first year from twenty to twenty one, I didn't take the microphone out of the stand because my hands would shake too much, you know. And then twenty two twenty three, I just

You've done other things, you've acted, you know, you've written, you've produced. It seems like a lot of people just get that stand up comedy bug and they can't shake it.

Is stand up your preferred thing juxtaposed to all the other things you've done.

Stand up is what I'm best at. I would like to do more acting, but that's not that's not in my control, you know. So everyone always goes, are you going to do more acting? And that's not saying to somebody, are you going to sleep with good looking women? Well, it's not my choice, it's theirs, you know what I mean. So if someone if someone chose for me to be in a movie, that I'll be in a movie, you know, But it's not my decision. Where stand up comedy is

I wonder, and I know that people probably roll their eyes when I ask this question. But Jerry Seinfeld talks about having a yellow sticky pad by his bed and he wakes up and writes a joke based off of something he thought of either the night before or a dream.

What is if you have one?

Your process when it comes to writing your material.

Well, I've never written a joke down. I have written a word here and there on my phone in the note section there's a whole lot of jumbled up words from in the middle of the night. You write down and the word will help you bounce off to the actual joke. But I've never actually written a joke down, or I've never actually sat down and thought, now I have to write. What I do is I joke around with my mates. I find something funny that I've said,

No, it's really fascinating. I've never heard that before.

I think I heard Chris Rock once upon a time say he tours for four years and wants to get something like two hundred shows under his belt before he knows the special is ready. What about you, Jim, how long do you tour before you know, Okay, this is a special. I'm ready to do this for an hour or whatever, one.

Year, one year. But then sometimes, look, I always just put my best hour of jokes out. It doesn't matter if I've written the joke a year ago or if I've written it a week ago. If I've written a week ago and it's storming it gets into the special, I just burn it straight away, because the special is the most important thing I worry about Tomorrow. I worry

When did you and how did you get the bug?

Did you see somebody perform and said I want to do that or did you have a favorite comic growing up?

What what hooked you to this craft?

Jim Well, Eddie.

Murphy When I was a kid, see I never I never got to see like George carl And or Richard prior to stand up because in Australia we didn't have HBO and we didn't have stand up specials. You know, we had like occasionally you'd have an American on British comic who came out to Australia and they did five

Well, you're a heavyweight now Jim, do you ever get over a joke bombing on stage? Because I've seen thousands of stand up shows and I worked in LA for a year, so I used to go to the store after I was done recording my stuff, And so to your point, I saw a lot of people work shopping material. And it's painful as an audience member when a comic tries a joke that just falls on deaf ears. Do you ever get over that or is it something that's always in the back of your mind.

Immediately in the early days, I didn't, But it's like any drug, right, the highs get lower and the lows get higher. You know, it's very hard to chase that buzz over and over again. So in the same way that I can have a standing ovation at the end of the gig and go oh, I did okay, right, but early on in my career I would have just been as arrogant as anything. I would have been thinking about how cool I was for days and days afterwards. But the flip side of that is if I bombed,

When did you know you were good at this? When did you know? When you know?

When you walked out on stage you thought, Okay, I've got this, I'm good at this.

Now. How long did that take?

It took?

It took me four years of doing it to think that I was a good comic. And then at about six years I started to believe that, you know, not that I was great comic, but I believe that there was no comic on earth that I was scared of following, you know. And that was the last hurdle. That was the last sort of Jedi master thing where you're like, because there's always a comic where you go, oh, I can't go on after that person. That person's too good and the audience will know how shit I am or

Now.

I know you reference some of the comics you liked when you were growing up. Who in the game right now do you enjoy, Like when you see they've released a special Aura pod.

I think Anthony jesselnext last special was very good. I think the best special day that I've seen in the last decade, and it's only thirty minutes long, is Earthquake. Well on Netflix, he released a thirty minutes special that was presented by Dave Chappelle, and I was proper laughing at home howling. I thought that was really you know what, It made me enthusiastic about stand up. I love that he went out there and the jokes were punch punch, punch,

Yeah, it feels like there's this boom of stand up comedy now is Do you feel like that's podcast?

Do you feel like that's social media?

Why?

Why do you feel like there's been kind of this stand up comedy boom where so many stand ups are making good money now.

Well, I was a little bit before the boom. You know I'm not. You know, my sort of peak ticket sales are maybe six years ago something like that, when there wasn't really arenas. Now people are doing arenas. I think we have. I think it's both good and bad.

No, I feel like you're correct, because it's much better to watch stand up. In my opinion, in the smaller, more intimate venues, you're kind of you know, intimated there before I say you loose.

Well, a lot of people.

Reported comedy specials and they did it like Madison Square Garden. I always put my comedy specials in a thousand seater because I feel it's the most connected to the audience you can get, and that's the best sort of gig you can have with the cameras all in close. And I told you that I don't like the idea of a comedy club because I like a big stage to move around on. But I think for the specials, I always go to a smaller room because I think it's

Before I say you lose.

One of the things that I always like about going excuse me to see stand up comics that have had great success like you, is the knowledge And Jim, if you don't have anything here, I get it because you're not coming to salt Lake until February the thirteenth. But I always enjoy a humorous mirror to look at about our state or city.

What do you know about salt Lake?

We are we are a very interesting, interesting market, Jen, to say the least.

What are you familiar with salt Lake? What do you know about it?

I came to the I went to the Sundane's Movie Festival once, and I think I've done one other gig in Salt Lake. I look back when I back when I was a drinker, I thought your place was a bit silly, you know, But now that I'm sober, it might be my utopia. But I'm also not a big fan of anyone who lived not anyone. I could never live in the cold, you know, if you have to, if you have to get out of your driveway with

You fair enough. I think you'll experience only nice people here. Jim, but it's the Son of the Carpenter, will Son of the Carpenter Tour February thirteenth at that Echo Center.

Jim, where do you want people go to get their tickets?

Go to Jim Jeffrees dot com and you'll just be able to click on a link there. It's on the front of the page that I have all my two of dates.

Thank you, sir, this has been a pleasure.

I've been a fan for a long long time and I'm going to be there at the Echos Theater.

I cannot wait. So be safe and continue the great work.

Okaye, make sure you come backstage and say hi afterwards.

Oh happy to do it. That would be it would be an honor, Jim. So I appreciate that. Thank you very much.

I appreciate you, brother, Thanks for having me.

All right. Jim Jefferies out of a carpenter tour right now.

Looks like he's going to be in Spoke Can coming up in Denver for a couple of dates. He'll be here February the thirteenth at the Echo Center. He has his special right now on Netflix called High and Dry. The best special in my opinion, the Jim released was in twenty ten.

It was called Alcoholocaust.

He's got a great bit on gun control. He has recorded ten specials. He's gonna record one in Chicago and so yeah, excited for that. I'll be there and maybe I'll be backstage apparently, which is awesome. Special thanks to Jim Jefferies.

How about that, man? That was fun.

I've been a fan of Jim's for like fifteen years. I watched all of his specials, and I gotta be honest, if you watch Jim Jeffries stand up specials. He comes across as kind of a grumpy guy, maybe somebody who's not all that front, a facne and very kind.

He was.

He was great, he was. I was a little bit taken back. He's I'm gonna go with direct.

I'm gonna go with direct because maybe I'm a little nihilist myself. So I kind of I'm with him on a lot of it. But it is, uh, it is. You're on the right track there.

Did you just compare yourself to Jim Jefferies.

I'm not nearly as funny, but I am maybe as nihilist.

I guess does that work? Maybe you're the Jim Jefferies of Sportstoc Radio. I don't know about that.

Jim will be in town February thirteenth Eckles Theater for his tour. Go to Jim Jefferies dot com for tickets. Joining us now another comic powerhouse, A very funny guy mostly known for his football acumen.

Though.

Mike Sanford Junior back on the show on a Tuesday, Mike, Happy Tuesday.

How are you?

They're awesome? I'm learning all kinds of stuff. The music you guys had coming in and Jim Jefferies. I mean, I feel like I'm in an alternate universe. I need to get with the times. Well, we've learned some pop culture in me.

Well, you're you're a football guy. Football guys don't have pop culture knowledge. You know that because of all you care about is football, Which is good because I have a lot that I want to talk to you about today, Mike.

I appreciate the time.

Obviously we have a national champ, it is Ohio State. You have coaching experience, So I wanted to ask you right out of the gates, what do you make of this wild ride the Ryan Day has been on for somebody that's been as successful as almost anyone who's ever done this job. Noise around him as little as like three or four weeks ago that he might be fired if he doesn't, you know, at least go to the championship game. But here he is the top of the mountain.

Well, I as a guy that grew up as a son of a coach and then also coached for eighteen twenty years myself having been a head coach. Certainly the offensive coordinator position is a job that I occupied for almost a decade, and that one's highly scrutinized, and you're always under pressure to perform and to outperform, frankly, expectations

To root for for me, and there's a there's a lot of these head coaches I've worked for for a few, to be really honest, that love to control the narrative, love to get into the spin zone at head coach and do everything in their power to deflect blame, you know, and and put it on two players or to coordinators.

That was it.

That was There's one game that really persuaded this thing and almost put it off the rails.

Can you give us a little bit of a frame of reference, because I don't know that there are very many fan bases that would want their coach to be out who's finished in the top ten every single year and has won a tremendous percentage of his game and games and more often than not is in the mix to win something special every single season. I mean, he has a better winning percentage than Jim Trestley, has a better S and P than Urban Meyer, and he's one

Well, I would say, you know, just put it in a local context, and and I just imagine if Witt, you know, was was the perennial you know, eleven twelve win season every single year for a decade, or saying in you know, in the case of Ryan Day six seven years but lost five straight years to the team down south, to the team in Provo. I mean, that's

Hear a lot of docking heads like myself, media types say like, oh, that Michigan loss was exactly what they needed.

Any meat on that bone.

I mean, as a guy that coaches that like a wake I mean, look, the results are what they are, and when we all diagnose and play Monday morning quarterback, it's easy to create a narrative like that. But is that a real thing in a locker room, like you feel like maybe you needed a wake up call.

I don't think it was from the perspective of motivation or they're over like they were over confident. I just didn't think it was really freed up and almost forced Ryan Day and Chip Kelly to get out of a little bit of this Big ten West football style of playing, which is just do everything in your power not to lose a game, which is how they lost that game to Michigan. I don't if you remember that game in particular, it was as risk averse of a game plan as

Yeah he was, uh, yeah, he was great. And I do want to get there in just a moment. But let's stick with the current situation where we find ourselves and let's move from Ohio State to Notre Dame and Marcus Freeman.

This wonder kins rise. I mean, you were a coach.

Can you imagine that your first head coaching job is Notre Dame at the age of thirty five, and obviously that fan base expects as much from their football team as any other. What stands out, Mike most to you as a guy that coached at this level with the way Marcus Freeman's been able to build this thing up over just four years at the precipice of almost winning the national championship.

Yeah, Marcus Freeman's been really impressive. I got to know him a little bit just because that's the place I was an offensive coordinator at. We had some crossover in terms of people that we've worked with. Mike Denbrock and I were a bit of a two headed monster there as an offensive play calling tandem back in twenty fifteen and twenty sixteen at Notre Dame. My dad coached at

Man.

I'll be honestly, this was a really impressive year for Notre Dame. Even the game last night I think really stood tall with regards to how much they were willing to step into the fight of battling adversity, you know, getting down early in games, and you know, even overcoming the Northern Illinois loss and how they bounce back from.

That was all really really good.

Notre Dame is great in the trenches. Notre Dame is really good in their defensive you know, linebacker play, edge play, their offensive line plays, hoigh end play, running back play. But there's just been a big problem, and I think it's because even in this nil portal area era excuse me, that we find yourselves in Notre Dame. You have to

So is there anything to be learned? You know, it doesn't matter the sport or the level. When somebody achieved success, others around them tried to learn what they did, and very much a copycat situation, the NBA, copycat league, the NFL. I mean, obviously there are different ways to approach it, but you know, if you could to bottle what the Kansas City Chiefs have namely fifteen under center.

Maybe you try to copy that.

So college football now looks to Ohio State as a north Star question mark to you, anything we could learn helps to have twenty twenty five mil. Whatever they had, but a lot of that money, Mike, as you know, went to returning players instead of just transfers. And we're in a market where coach win, as you know, is

Yeah, you have to develop and recruit and develop your your offense and defensive lines, your linebackers, I do your tight end position. And it just seems like if you look at the matchup with the quarterbacks last night in that National Championship game, they're two, one and done. You know, experienced quarterbacks. Riley Leonard comes over from Duke and of course Will Howard comes over from Kansas State. That's kind of the model. And I love what Utah has done

Some.

You have to be like some exhaustion from donor fatigue of giving money and not seeing return on investment. So there's a lot of challenges and I think we're just starting to see some of some of the potential ramifications of how much money is being thrown into one season of college football.

So now that we have the twelve team CFP behind us, Mike, I wonder what your takeaways are as far as whether or not you like the format, whether or not you think it's going to need to be changed, and whether or not you think it will be changed.

What are your thoughts on.

This well, you know the one thing, Spence, that I live in a pro sports market but does have college football. I mean, between Colorado and even the run they made, they were close to being in the CFP at one point, you know, week eleven, week twelve, a season. Man, it just seemed like Monday night. Even when I woke up Monday morning, it didn't feel like a National College Football Championship game day. It just something seemed just seemed to ry.

Move be moved up.

Because as much as the CFP accomplished what it set out to accomplish, I went to a CFP game. I went to watch. I want to see my alma mater, Boise State play against Penn State. And while you know that it seemed like a great atmosphere. It just didn't I don't know, it didn't have the juice that I expected being in the building. It just felt like, I don't know, it's like, this is such a long process.

But at the end of the.

Day, was that like something you're gonna remember the rest of your life. There was nothing out of this twelve team playoff that really stood out to me. I'd love to hear from you and your opinion, but it just didn't feel like it really captured the emotion of America in this first year of it.

So here's my assertion, Mike, can you tell me if you think this is even possible, because I believe college football should be played on college football campuses, and I mean like every single game, maybe outside of the final game. Joel Klattz idea is to make the Rose Bowl college football's answer to the Super Bowl. Is there a way to reward teams in communities so they don't have to travel to Atlanta and then Dallas and then back to

I think there's certainly a way you could pull it off. I mean, you're you're going to deal with a lot of the weather issues and a lot of the excuse making. But you know, at the same time, you know, if you want to you want a home game, and you need to perform better in your regular season and your conference play. I think there's an equity issue, even Notre Dame not having to be forced to play a conference

And I'm with you there, and you know, certainly, I think because there are a lot of people that just they belong to the church of college football and they're gonna love it no matter what. And you know the fact that it was seventy seven thousand people. The cheapest ticket, according to Matt Brown, who joined us from Extra Points, was three grand. We haven't seen the final number, but

Yeah, you know, I mean, did you see some of the ticket prices though on like for example, you know some of the some of the I guess it'd be the second round and third round games that were traditional bowls like the Fiesta Bowl for example. I mean almost I ended up going to the Fiesta Bowl. And I worked as a credential member of the media for the Boise State media, and so I didn't pay for tickets,

Mike, before I say you lose, I know we have talked about this before, but a great radio mind once told me radio is not linear, so for our listeners it may not have been tuned in. I wanted to revisit your opinion on Jason Beck as a new offensive coordinator, your reference you like Devin Dampier as well, and Utah football bringing in forty one new players with a fifty three percent roster turnover after a year that nobody saw comment, including me, including you, including.

Them, right, So what are you expecting next year? Year two? Big twelve? Utah football.

Well, I'm really excited about the hire of Jason Beck. He has a great familiarity of the state of Utah. He understands, you know, what what that program at Utah is all about, and he's been on the other side of that rivalry with BYU, of course.

But I got to know Jason.

I called a couple of his games, you know, followed his team really closely. I did the CSU versus New Mexico game, which frankly was probably one of his one of their worst games. They had a pretty banged up roster with missing a ton of their skill players. But I'll tell you this schematically, he's one of my favorite

Oh, Mike, I guess you've never met college football fans. I love the message. But you you know, you know how, and you know what's rough, man. It's always the OC, isn't it. It's always the offensive coordinator of the falls.

On the show, you know what.

It's that way in the state of Utah. And I love the state of Utah. I love coaching in it. I was the offensive coordinator at the Utah State. There definitely is a culture defensive minded head coaches at most of the schools in that state. Certainly, like you look at the history of the last couple decades since Ervin Meyer was at Utah, there's a lot of meddling with the offensive coordinator position. Let the man coach and he will do a great job. That's my advice to anybody

Well said, and we do want your advice because you've coached. Okay, So I appreciate the time, my friend, have a great week. We'll get you back on soon.

Yeah, I appreciate you Spence all right.

Mike Sanford junior, longtime college football coach, played his college ball at Boise State, where he's a good quarterback. Appreciate Mike's time doing the media rounds these days. That coach underscore Sandford two is where you find him